The Reluctant Feminist - How to talk about Feminism

Political ideologies are always difficult to talk about because we tend to see things only in black and white. An ideology is assumed to be either good or it's bad. So when we pick a side, cement our beliefs, and go on to do our best to fix s0cial problems we only end up giving way to more confrontation.

Feminism is one such ideology that has raised more confrontation than anything else. Everyone has their own beliefs about what feminism is and holds on to those beliefs.

For me, Feminism is about making the world gender neutral, a place where no one is judged based on their gender or biological sex. If we look around in our society, women are the opressed in this enviroment of gender biases. So, we talk about how men have opressed women to a point where they are though lesser and subjected to more rules and stereotypes than men.

Hatred against men seems to be justified in this unfair society ruled by men. So, we hate. and hate leads to confrontation that is damaging this movement for gender neutrality more than anything else.

People, both men and women, who might have been open and more accepting to the idea of a gender neutral society become rigid in their old beliefs and stereotypes because of this confrontation.

It's a thin line, by being feminist we are challenging the norms of society with deep rooted gender stereotypes and at the same time we, more often than not, tend to be stereotypical about the other gender that is men. We have to remember our goal, that is to make a gender neutral society where noone is judged by his or her gender. In judging one gender we are becoming the very thing we despise.

This doesn't imply that we don't talk againt mysogynist norms of our society, we just have to highlight the harm it does to individuality in a way that it doesn't become a confrontation between ideologies. Changing one's opinions is never easy and this only gets difficult if the change is confrontional.

Feminist movement was always about gender neutrality, by lifting women out of the opression and making all genders equal. Equality is the final aim of this movement and we should not forget out core beliefs when we voice our concers and grief.

I hope we live to see a world where gender doesn't matter and i think that would be the day feminist movement would have accomplished it's primary goal.

It's not about hate, it's about love, so don't make this about hate. While we continue our fight againt everything wrong in this society, we should never loose sight of the true purpose of feminist movement and hope we don't become what we hope to change.

Edit: This post was more like a thought process than a final statement and i acknowledge that a man can never understand what women have to go through in their lifetime.